Sunday Morning Coming Down
by the-aleator
Summary: If fate had ever given Leonard McCoy a second chance, he swore that he would take it with both hands. Or the reason why he had to be drafted, come V'ger, and how he wound up happy. McCoy/OC.
1. There's Nothing Short A'Dying

**Title:** Sunday Morning Coming Down

 **Characters:** McCoy

 **Rating:** K+

 **Wordcount:** 802  
 **Warnings/Spoilers:** Basic TOS spoilers and speculation. Also, disinclination to follow a dysfunctional fandom chronology.  
 **Summary:** _If fate had ever given Leonard McCoy a second chance, he swore that he would take it with both hands. Or the reason why he had to be drafted, come V'Ger, and how he wound up happy. McCoy/OC._

* * *

 **A/N:** TOS was my first fandom. And it always bothered me that McCoy pops in and out of the show and movies as needed, because of the Trio, he was my favorite. Spock grew more interesting to me as he grew into his _gravitas_ , and Kirk more interesting as he grew out of his pomposity, but McCoy was always fascinating, at any age. It is, I think, the combination of world-weary gruffiness and a heart incapable of not giving. Bones, it seems to me, deserved better than what he got. So really, the reason for this fic is the memory of DeForest Kelley, a truly wonderful man; and because Love goes both ways.

(This remains unbeta-ed and barely edited. I welcome any and all feedback.)

* * *

 **There's Nothing Short A'Dying**

He forgets his umbrella. No, it's the haste that pounds through his blood and demands he go, sans umbrella, hat, reason, sanity. But no matter his haste, his desperation, Jim won't listen.

It's been five years, and too much. When he leaves Jim's—no, Admiral Kirk's apartment—he's got nothing left. He had thought that once before, that the only thing he had left was his bones. But now he's certain: there is nothing left.

Tomorrow, he thinks wearily, he'll resign his commission. And then, he'll go home and rest. The rain outside the transporter station drips down the roof and onto the toes of his boots as he looks once more down the street towards Jim's apartment.

After all they went through, this is good-bye. There is no moving Jim now that Spock is off on Vulcan at Gol, and all the rest of the crew—Scotty, Uhura, Chapel, Sulu, Chekhov—have scattered to the four winds.

Tomorrow, he'll face up to what he has to do. Tonight, he'll drink himself into oblivion.

He takes a deep breath, all the way down to his spine, and lets it out slow. He can feel the beginnings of a migraine coming on, the ache up the back of his neck and the pounding behind his eyes. They've been coming more recently lately, brought on by stress and heartache. That is, ever since every alien in outer space has started mucking around in his head. He knows he should worry about this. He knows he doesn't.

The pain, burgeoning, makes him blink. He only has a few moments before it will grow intolerable. So he risks one more look down the street and turns swiftly on his heel, ready to head for the transporter. He knows where he isn't wanted.

But he stops. Puzzled. And then he looks down. The cold wet that he feels pressing through his pant leg isn't from the rain.

"Hello there, little fellow." He drawls, as he slowly crouches. The black nose and enormous dark blue eyes of the puppy back half a foot away from him. He's a roly-poly little fellow, a muddy brown, with long ears and a stubby muzzle. The blue eyes watch, warily.

McCoy reaches out with an extended hand. "Why, I'm not going to hurt you, boy." He says, keeping his voice low and mellow. The dog sniffs at his hand—once, twice, three times—and then, whuffs politely. McCoy looks around the station, seeing no one.

"Haven't you got people?" He says to the dog, wonderingly. Had the puppy wandered in off the street? It's almost midnight, the weather is foul, and the transporter station is deserted. Or had someone left him here? The puppy has no collar, or tags of any kind.

"I'm all on my lonesome here, too." McCoy starts, just a little. He hadn't meant to say that out loud. And then starts again as a small, warm, furry body has bowled into his palm and fallen on his hand. He looks down to meet the trusting blue eyes of the puppy, lying on his forearm.

No, he thinks to himself, grinding his teeth. No, he doesn't need anything else to worry about.

But when he beams up, one silky ear lies like a blazon on the collar of his corduroy jacket, and the other is tucked under his chin.

* * *

Spock would say he was being illogical, McCoy thinks. The floor of his hotel room is freezing, and his joints are beginning to ache, even as the migraine which threatened him previously has begun to jackknife through his skull. The best way to meet a puppy, however, is to let him get his full measure, so he sits on the floor and lets the puppy clamber all over him.

Ten minutes later, he gives up his plans on getting completely drunk, and goes to the bathroom. When he gets back to get in bed, he greets the small body cuddling in his hotel bed with a raised eyebrow.

But he's too tired to fight anymore. Even a dog.

"Only for tonight." He says. "Until we get you sorted out tomorrow." And then he orders the computer to dim the lights, and lays in bed with a half-sigh, half-groan. Lying there, in the dark, the images of the last five years rush forward from his memories. His head throbs in time with his heartbeat, and he clenches his fist tightly in the sheets.

Breathe in. Count to ten. Breath out. Count to ten. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.

If he remembered it in the morning, McCoy certainly wouldn't admit that the light head nuzzling his chest makes his heart ease, for the first time in days, and that the soft breathing next to his ribs soothes him to sleep.


	2. Half as Lonesome as the Sound

**Title:** Sunday Morning Coming Down

 **Characters:** McCoy

 **Rating:** K+

 **Wordcount:** 1132 (1933)  
 **Warnings/Spoilers:** Basic TOS spoilers and speculation. Also, disinclination to follow a dysfunctional fandom chronology.  
 **Summary:** _If fate had ever given Leonard McCoy a second chance, he swore that he would take it with both hands. Or the reason why he had to be drafted, come V'Ger, and how he wound up happy. McCoy/OC._

* * *

 **A/N:** Here's chapter 2. The chapter title, again, is from the Johnny Cash's excellent version of "Sunday Morning Coming Down." (Yes, even in the 23rd century, good ol' Southern boys listen to country music!) I got the idea for McCoy  & dog fic (plus a bit of mystery) from "Five Times Spock Learned Something New About Leonard McCoy" by PSW, a new fic (new to me at any rate) that really delighted me. And, of course, DeForest Kelley was pretty magnanimous about his own pets and the charity work he did for pet shelters all over the U.S. Here again, the reason for this fic is the memory of DeForest Kelley, a truly wonderful man; and because Love goes both ways.

(This remains unbeta-ed and barely edited. I welcome any and all feedback.)

* * *

 **Half as Lonesome as the Sound**

The next day, he abandons his breakfast of real eggs and bacon to a crestfallen nose and two enormous blue eyes. He keeps the coffee. It's black these days, and double strong.

"Dear Lord, I am getting soft." He says, watching the puppy tuck into a perfectly made plate of over-easy, and strips done crispy. But he's survived the last eighteenth months on little more than coffee and will, so he can stretch it one more day, even with the weariness that seeps out of his bones. He's lost more weight than he should, he knows, but worry and stress have made it difficult to eat.

"Don't look at me like that, sirrah. There isn't any more to give." And that's more true than he will admit. His eyes cloud for a moment, remembering, how hard it's been for him—how hard he's had to be.

Everybody wants to applaud James T. Kirk, Captain, for the historic lowest death toll on a five year mission. Leonard McCoy knows different. His jaw tightens, and he knows, _knows_ that his hands are shaking. They are the slim, strong fingers of a surgeon, and they shake. Only the most unfathomable luck in the galaxy had kept him, Spock, and Jim alive—too many of the crew hadn't made it back.

He had refused to turn on the holovid this morning. He went to space to forget his private sorrows, and now new griefs play, in full triumph, on every news outlet primetime all over the galaxy. The wave of despair is so strong for a moment that if he had anything at all to drink, he would on his way to getting dead drunk. What he wants, what he wants desperately badly, is a very strong, probably illegal drink. If he had any moonshine, he'd be halfway to heaven already. But experience tells him that that way lies madness. So, he leans his head on his fist, and turns to his feet.

"You," he says instead "need a bath. Badly." The hotel cleaners may wonder why there is mud and dirt all over his sheets. Let them wonder—it's better than blood. And with that cheery thought, he scoops up a contented puppy, stomach full to bursting, and heads for the bathroom.

Cleaned-up, it turns out that the silky soft fur of the puppy is actually a dark red in color, not brown. And clean-shaven, McCoy accepts the gray in the mirror with an equanimity that his closest friends would find alarming. The puppy, and it is a male, he checked, looks close enough to an Irish setter red to be one, or a mutt with some in him. He's all stubby limbs and tottery trot, so he can't be more than a month or two old.

"Someone really did you a bad turn, didn't they?" He says sympathetically, toweling off damp fur. The puppy squeaks, sneezes, but stays put trustingly, and he feels the little, delicate ribs moving under his hands with the smallest movement of wonder.

* * *

It being a Sunday, McCoy doesn't have much hope for his mission of mercy. He doesn't have much hope he'll manage to get drunk either, and so he suspects both of his principal inclinations will, once again, be thwarted.

"Look here," He drawls forcefully, almost angrily. "You've not missing any puppies of this breed or inclination? Puppies don't just appear on street corners anymore, son, not in this day and age."

The boy, or he looks like a boy to McCoy, shrugs his shoulders. "He's not ours. And we haven't gotten any reports for a puppy like that. Are you sure he doesn't have a chip?"

"Yes." McCoy bites off the word, because that was the first thing he'd done after washing the dog—check with his tricorder to see if the puppy had a chip.

"Well," the boy shuffles some papers on his desk. "Well, we can't take him. If he comes here, he won't stay here, if you know what I mean." Underneath that three-day scruff, McCoy takes in the boy's expression—only the caring ones end up that bitter. "We're already over our quota, and the end of the month is coming up."

"Quotas?" McCoy repeats evenly. Tired brown eyes look back at him from the screen, and the boy nods, mouth tight. He's already checked out all the animal control offices in the surrounding neighborhoods. Everyone repeats the same story. "Thanks all the same, son." McCoy finally says, wearily.

"I wish I could be more help, sir."

"They always do." McCoy says, half to himself and half to the dog, as he switches off the communication link. "They always do."

* * *

In contrast to the morning dog-hunt, resigning his commission takes a single hour after lunch. He's signed most of the paperwork and done most of the reviews, shipboard, and all that remains is for the last few bits and bobs to fall into place. By two o'clock, his head is pounding, the puppy has chewed up his boot's upper, and he no longer belongs to Star Fleet.

"Good riddance," he glowers under his breath, and then, with a bashful look at the dog, chews his tongue. "Not you, course. But we're off home, now, boy. Good country, good people." He cheers, and then thinks.

"If I'm going to keep you, you'll need a name." He rolls a few over his tongue: Spot, Buddy, Lucky. None seem to fit.

"Rory." He finally settles on. "Rory." The silky red ears perk up at that name.

"That settles that." And the newly named Rory, reclines on his haunches regally, and cocks his head to the side, as if to say, _yes_ , _I will be your dog_ _if_ _you will be my man._ The dark blue eyes that watch him have a steady gleam.

McCoy shakes his head, sputters a little on his ever-present coffee. He's further gone than he thought if he's started thinking like that about a dog. He looks around his hotel room again, and sees nothing more to pick up than his PADD, as all his uniforms, save the one he has on, he's left behind on the Enterprise. Everything else, everything important, he hasn't bothered to unpack.

He's said good-bye already. Now, it's time to go home.

"Come on, Rory." He calls, snapping his fingers. "There's nothing left for us to do here." With that, the dog is by his side with only a few wobbles.

Leaving for good means McCoy takes the puppy under one arm, and his slim suitcase and doctor's bag in the other, and heads for the transporter one last time. "Don't trust these things," he mutters under his breath, "I'm still waiting to get lost" he says as he energizes.

What he thinks, but doesn't say, is that he is still waiting to get home.


	3. Of the Sleeping City Sidewalk

**Title:** Sunday Morning Coming Down

 **Characters:** McCoy

 **Rating:** K+

 **Wordcount:** 1769 (3713)  
 **Warnings/Spoilers:** Basic TOS spoilers and speculation. Also, disinclination to follow a dysfunctional fandom chronology, and liberties with Southern accents.

 **Summary:** _If fate had ever given Leonard McCoy a second chance, he swore that he would take it with both hands. Or the reason why he had to be drafted, come V'Ger, and how he wound up happy. McCoy/OC._

* * *

AN: It is a literary trope as old as dirt, and for good reason, that the only place to rest and recover is at home. It speaks to the stability of the family place, and sturdiness of tradition, that for so many men, home from war, it is the only place to lick their wounds. They dream about it when away, and are contented by it when we return.

One of the more frustrating things about TOS is, as is typical for shows from the 1960s, each new episode is a _tabula rasa_ for the characters. So, we never really see the emotional or physical ramifications of—some of the truly _horrific_ things that occur—each episode. Death, fatal injury, injury, attempted rape, mind control—POOF!—all better. Except it doesn't really work like that, not even in the 23rd century.

The reason for this fic is the memory of DeForest Kelley, a truly wonderful man; and because Love goes both ways.

* * *

Of the Sleeping City Sidewalk

The truth of the matter is, the USS Enterprise limps into port. They are stripped down to their last bolts, and the fact that the engines still work is the singular miracle due to the genius of Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott. Crewmembers have been talking dreamily about non-replicated food for weeks, and most of the Command crew (particularly the Captain) is down to the last shreds of their uniforms. All those problems, though, are only with _things_. For years, McCoy and his kind have been throwing datachip after datachip at Starfleet Command, and yelling at the top of their lungs and underscoring with the bright red of blood that five years is _too long_ to be in space.

A man needs his place, and for all the technological advancements of the Enterprise, replications and shore leaves simply are not sufficient rest for the crew. By the end of the first year, morale and efficiency hovers five points lower than it did at the beginning of their voyage. By three years, more than a quarter of the crew has rotated out, citing stress and psychological reasons. Morale and efficiency wavers around seventy-five percent for the next two years. The condition once known as "shellshock" and "PTSD" pops up with alarming frequency.

Leonard McCoy does not dare to isolate the officer's morale and efficiency. He doesn't dare isolate his own, mainly because he knows he's lying. If he were an honest CMO, he'd have slapped himself with an "Unfit for Service" months ago, because he's overworked, overtired, and his nerves are shot. But who would he report it too? He's Chief Surgeon, Chief Medical Officer, Chief Psychiatrist and, on the days when Spock is injured or too busy, half the head of Sciences.

Even Spock, the private logical Vulcan that he is, concedes the need to return home. Though he does not say so much in so many words, the dark eyes of the Vulcan look strained. He even lets McCoy win, a time or two, and when pushed, simply says, lowly:

"For balance, Dr. McCoy."

It's as true an answer as McCoy has ever gotten from him. Jim, of all of them, is the aberration. He pushes into being an Admiral, pushes into more responsibility, more work, more prestige. McCoy tells him it's a mistake. He tells him again, in four different languages, and half a dozen swear words. But he doesn't listen. If it isn't a sign of his troubles, McCoy doesn't know what is.

When his time is up, he resigns his commission. Never again will he return to space.

* * *

The Old House is still in good shape. It was set far enough back in the Georgian woods that the wars of the past four centuries have passed it by, unsuspecting. It isn't a manor house, but the long porch welcomes him, as it always has, and the long white façade of the Greek revival style, with its classically clean lines, have always looked beautiful, peeking out from beneath the green.

No one on the Enterprise would have suspected Leonard McCoy to own close to a hundred acres of good farming soil, but he does. His wife had taken everything; but, family land was family land. His forefathers were buried in this soil, and he had fought to keep it. Perhaps not as hard as he had fought for his daughter, Joanna, but it was close. She was his future; this was his past.

He pays a local handyman, Stewart, to keep up the house. Milledgeville itself is still a sleepy little hamlet, almost as stuck in history as he is. There are only a few things to do here, even to visit the local sites, half of which are rarely ever open.

It's the kind of leisure he prefers. It's the kind of rest he needs.

The tail under his jacket thumps him in the side, twice, and McCoy turns his cerulean eyes down to meet Rory's darker blue.

"Just wool-gathering." He murmurs, and puts Rory down gently. The puppy takes off as quickly as his stubby legs will carry him. McCoy watches him go. In his dreams, it is almost like this: the clean, sweet scent of Georgia pines blowing down the drive, the slow crunch of gravel underneath his boots, the dark-haired, beautiful, beautiful girl rushing down the porch to meet him with a child's warmth and ready affection.

But Joanna isn't a girl anymore; she's a grown woman, making her way through the Academy. He's already spent a weekend with her in San Francisco, and won't be able to see her again until the holidays. He almost doesn't want to see her again, because regretting what he has missed is so painful, and because her eyes, his blue, are so happy and free from shadows.

She's the best of him.

* * *

It takes longer than he thinks to open the house up again. It's old-fashioned, just like him, and so he goes around the house, pulling off dust covers and turning up the shades. The automated systems have prevented much in the way of dust, but there isn't any food in the preserved cupboards, so he makes a note to head into town and get some. He throws the long, plantation windows open with wild abandon, and turns off the recyclers. Just the smell of good, clean Georgia air will brighten his mood and ease his throbbing headache.

Rory has since decided that the braided rug near the ancient, enormous fireplace makes a nice bed, and settles, in that doggish, thumping way, to take a nap. McCoy decides that means it's time for his errands. He'll pop into the grocers, and the hardware store, for some bare necessities and the leash and collar Rory desperately needs. Eggs, milk, coffee, a loaf of bread, and half a case of whiskey. The whiskey will help his headache, he's almost sure of it.

"You just lay there, boy." He says, gruffly. "One of us needs to get enough sleep." It's a hollow joke, and it falters somewhere between his mouth and the puppy's ears. The dog's face, he thinks, looks entirely too sympathetic.

* * *

It gets around quick after Sunday service that Doctor Leonard McCoy, one of _those_ McCoy's, is back in town. Agnes MacPherson, all prim lines from her white bun to her long full skirt, who has lived in Milledgeville her whole life, and has known Leonard, and Leonard's father, and Leonard's grandfather, is one of those little old ladies who cluster in the doorway to see their native son returned to them.

"Why, Agnes." Miss Thomson whispers, shocked, "He's nothing but skin and bones! What did they feed him, out in space?" Agnes says nothing, her mouth drawn tight across her real teeth. She is shocked by how tired he looks. The lines in his face are haggard, and the bags under his eyes are distinct. He looks _old_ , older than his years. There is gray coming in that dark bay, and his cerulean eyes are so dull they look washed out.

It takes only a split second to place those eyes which look right through her as if she isn't there. They look just like the eyes of her grandfather's grandfather, who had worn the gray and fought at that ancient battle in Gettysburg. Agnes never knew him, but she knew those century old eyes, still aching in their monochrome frame. Weariness and grief, in equal measure.

She knows what she sees, and saddens a little: he looks like a soldier, back from the war. He passes through the flock of Milledgeville's best with little more than a few nods of his head and a few, curt "Good mornings." There is just enough of a downward slope to those shoulders that she instinctively bites back her comments, and nudges old Miss Agatha Snickett, who she still hasn't forgiven about her prize-winning pie back in '50, when she opens her shrewish mouth.

But his hand, when he takes hers to say hello, is still gentle.

Watching his back, ramrod straight under a tattered corduroy coat, pass slowly down the sidewalk, Agnes quirks her lip a little. Now is no time for gossiping, but action. Leonard McCoy hasn't got any people to take care of him any longer, after that trouble with his wife and that tragedy with his father. He's all by himself out on that big house, and nobody to take care of him at all. It's a shame. It's a double shame, because whoever sent him out into the wide reaches of the galaxy with a ship full of strangers didn't bother to take care of him neither.

"Ladies," she says softly, and a dozen white-haired, heads turn her way. "Ladies, I do believe we have a disposition to be taking, and a stratagem to plan."

"Why, Miss MacPherson" Miss Agatha responds, "I do believe you're right." Agnes nods, knowing, in the best way of little sleepy towns, that their long-running little feud will be laid aside in this instance.

* * *

Compared to some of the treks on strange planets he's made, the walk back from town isn't that arduous. It's long enough, however, for him to shift the bag of groceries he carries to his other arm. It isn't the exertion, however, that makes beads of sweat trickle down his temples, and sting stubbornly at his eyes. Even the gentle, little old ladies of Milledgeville pressing in on him had made his heart race with tension. Why, it's practically a sleeping city sidewalk compared to the vulgar flock of vultures who beset him in San Francisco.

But his heart races, because he knows the truth. That if those little old ladies hadn't looked at him with innocent eyes and asked him if he were come to sit and stay a while, he would've bought a whole case of whiskey, and let the rest of the Enterprise be damned. The societal pressure is the only thing that's kept him from the edge, right now, right this moment.

But later? He'll still have a bottle of whiskey, and enough sedatives for a small army. He can't stop thinking that thought once he's imagined it.

"Leonard," he groans to himself, "Leonard, you've got to get a hold on yourself."

It all feels like one slow, steep precipice—one that his fingers can no longer claw and grasp and get a hold of. He's slipping towards the edge, he knows, terrified. What will pull him back, when he no longer has the will to hold on any longer?

What terrifies him most is that he doesn't know.


End file.
